1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus capable of associating an image with positional information indicating where the image has been photographed, a control method thereof, and a recording medium that records a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is a technique related to a system which searches, when image data whose photographing position is unclear is input, similar image data and outputs the positional information on where the similar image data has been photographed. As a result, a user can acquire the photographing position of the image data whose photographing position has been unclear.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-191339 discusses the following technique. When the image data photographed by an imaging apparatus is input, a feature component is extracted from the image data. A similar image is then searched from a database based on the extracted feature component, and the positional information, i.e., the search result is notified to a user.
However, the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-191339 does not consider whether the positional information of the similar image data in the database to be searched is information that matches the content of the image.
For example, the positional information added to an image is often different between a case where the positional information is acquired by actually photographing an object and a case there the positional information acquired by photographing a photograph of the object. Further, the positional information added to the image in the later case is usually unrelated to the actual position of the object.
However, since the same object is photographed in the image of the later case and in the image of the former case, the user may be notified of the positional information added to the image of the later case as the search result of the positional information. As described above, if there is image data to which the positional information not related to the content of the image is added among the image data pieces registered in the database, the user may be notified of the positional information not expected by the user.